


A Rare Warrior

by madame_faust



Category: The Hobbit (2012), The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-11
Updated: 2013-02-11
Packaged: 2017-11-28 22:04:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,148
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/679363
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/madame_faust/pseuds/madame_faust
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fill for a prompt on the kink meme: "Bilbo gets hurt and it's not a life-threatening, but it has to be closed. And the Company has nothing else than Ori's pocket sewing kit. And Thorin will do it, because Óin's eyes are not that good anymore for making stitches small and tidy and this is a difficult task - no one wants to cause their burglar pain - so the leader steps in to deal with it."</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Rare Warrior

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I own nothing and am making no profit from this story. Read the original prompt and fill here: http://hobbit-kink.livejournal.com/4373.html?thread=9454613#t9454613 
> 
> Bifur's lines are bolded to differentiate between Khuzdul and Westron. Enjoy the slightly apocryphal descriptions of medical techniques. The Dwarves PROBABLY wouldn't have washed their hands before attempting minor surgery, but let's pretend Óin is WAY ahead of his time.

When their burglar took a tumble onto some rocks, none of the Dwarrows in the Company were overly concerned. Sure, Hobbits were neither as stout nor as hearty as Dwarves, but a fall of a few feet onto sharp, unyielding stone shouldn’t produce more than a few bruises, right?  
  
Assuming the only thing truly damaged was the halfling’s pride, Bofur waved the rest of the Company on with a cheerful, “I’ll set him on his feet!” and he jumped into the ravine that swallowed up their burglar. “Up you get!” he said merrily, going to put an arm under Bilbo’s elbow to help him stand.  
  
Bilbo was dazed by the fall and only blinked when he saw Bofur’s hat twitching above his head, taking stock of the potential damage. Broken bones? Well, he wouldn’t know unless he stood, would he? Not wanting to complain when he so recently gained the respect of his fellows, Bilbo took hold of the sturdy proffered arm and dragged himself to his feet. He could move his arms at the very least, his back seemed to be in one piece, he couldn’t actually _feel_ his brains leaking out his ears, so -  
  
“Aaagggh!” the hobbit howled in agony, falling back onto the rocks and scraping his knees. “S-sorry,” he said to Bofur who stuck the finger of one hand into his ear for fear that his eardrum might burst. “It’s just...my leg...”  
  
The miner’s dark eyes doubled in size when he saw the massive gash in Bilbo’s left leg. “Durin’s beard!” he swore. “Sorry, laddie, I’d not have been so rough with you if I knew you were hurt.” The blood was flowing freely, but Bilbo, bless his stubborn little hobbit heart, tried to get up under his own steam.  
  
“No, no you don’t,” Bofur said, squeezing his friend’s shoulder. “I’ll be back in a trice, don’t you go nowheres.”  
  
“Everything alright?” Fíli called down to them. As ever, his brother was at his side, squinting at the pair below. Night was coming quickly to the forest and they were rapidly losing daylight to see by.  
  
“Not a bit!” Bofur shouted back. “Come down here and make yourselves useful - ah, not yet! Ask Bombur for his cloak, we have need of it!”  
  
Bilbo was loathe to see the Company put to trouble for a little scratch - not so little, he noticed as he looked back down at it. Immediately after looking he wished he hadn’t, his leg looked like a gutted fish and the slight of the blood made him woozy. Or maybe that was due to the fact that so much of his blood littered the forest floor when, by rights, it ought to have been tucked away inside him.  
  
The brothers leapt down upon the rocks and laid the cloak out, urging Bilbo to lie still that they might take him up to rejoin the others without jostling him too much. Seeing no alternative, he obeyed, cringing internally with every bump and sway. Already the blood from his leg was soaking the fabric beneath him and he apologized to Bombur, who was standing anxiously at the ledge where he’d fallen and helped Dori lift him back onto flat ground.  
  
“S’alright, Bilbo, it’ll wash out,” their cook said, laying a heavy, reassuring hand on the hobbit’s narrow shoulder.  
  
Óin too was there, waving everyone away so that he could take a look at the burglar who was now his patient. “This is deep, it needs to be stitched,” he sighed and then lamented that he lost his surgical tools to the Goblins and had nothing to close the wound.  
  
Bilbo’s head shot up from where it was lying on the ground, “Stitched?” he squeaked. Once, when he was a very small hobbit, he sliced his finger with a letter-opener and required two stitches. Before the first one even went in, he fainted dead away in his mother’s lap. It was not an experience he was eager to repeat. “Couldn’t...couldn’t you just wrap it?”  
  
“I’ll have to,” the healer said in an unhappy voice. “It’s a clean cut, but all the wrapping in the world won’t stopper that bleeding or close the wound.” The others in the company exchanged knowing looks. If bleeding out didn’t kill their burglar, infection was just as deadly, even if it was slower in its work.

“I’ve...sorry, it’s stupid,” Ori spoke up and a dozen heads swiveled to look at him.  
  
“What is it, lad?” Óin asked encouragingly.  
  
“I just...I’ve still got my needle and thread. For the mending, you know. Not the sort you use to patch wounds.”  
  
“You’d be surprised,” Glóin mumbled, stroking his beard thoughtfully. “Half an apothecary, half a tailor, him.”  
  
Óin nod to Ori, “Fetch your sewing things. And Glóin, get a fire going. Nori, get some water, I want it clean as possible. Is there any whiskey?”  
  
There was not, the surgery would have to be performed ‘dry’ as they called it. It was not Óin’s preferred method of stitching wounds, but he’d done so before. He stitched up more warriors dry in the tents of Azanulbizar than he could count. Most of them were so far gone from pain that the in and out of the needle was just another ache on top of missing limbs and bashed-in heads. Their hobbit was not going to be so lucky.  
  
The darkness was quickly gathering and they moved Bilbo close to the fire, washing the wound as well as they could. Óin cursed as he missed threading the needle, warmed in the flames to clean it and make for quick work. “I can’t work in this darkness. My eyes aren’t what they used to be.”  
  
Without another word about it, the company all turned to look at Kíli. As their archer, he was well-known to have the keenest eyes among them. The lad’s face went white as a sheet in the gloom when he realized he’d be expected to patch up their burglar. He had no experience of doing such things and he didn’t want to cause Bilbo more pain - or worse.  
  
“I’ll do it, my eyes are good enough and I have some experience.” Thorin was already taking his coat off and rolling his sleeves to the elbow. He washed his hands in the water that was just this side of scalding and successfully threaded the needle in one try, sitting on the ground beside the hobbit  
  
Bilbo gulped as the needle caught the firelight and he began trembling involuntarily. “You’ll have to keep still,” Dori said softly, kneeling at Bilbo’s head and giving his head a fatherly pat.  
  
“D-don’t know that I have a choice,” Bilbo replied apologetically. Fíli and Kíli were immediately at his head and heels, laying gentle but firm hands to keep him still.  
  
“Sorry,” they apologized as one.  
  
“But it’s better than Thorin jabbing you in the knee, eh?” Kíli smiled at him, but the expression did not reach his eyes or smooth his creased brow. His uncle shot him a disgruntled look, but did not chastise nephew, knowing he was trying - failing, but _trying_ \- to comfort the hobbit.  
  
“Here,” Nori said, dropping down by Bilbo’s head and holding out a leather strap. “Bite into that. So you don’t crack your teeth or bite your tongue.”  
  
Bilbo could not speak to thank the dwarf before his brother shoved the thong into his mouth and Thorin met his eyes. “I’m sorry about this, sorry we have nothing to ease the pain,” he knew the wizard did some healing magic on him following the encounter with the Pale Orc and he wondered where the creature was to help the halfling’s healing. As he had when his nephews were small and needed to have a thorn or splinter pulled from their thumbs or the soles of their feet, he counted down so the hobbit would be prepared before he drove the needle in, “Three. Two. One.”  
  
A strangled cry, muffled by the strap in his mouth, escaped Bilbo and he shook violently, but Fíli and Kíli held him fast. Kíli’s eyes screwed up involuntarily when his uncle made to prick their burglar’s flesh and he looked away, but Fíli’s eyes were fixed on the wound in Bilbo’s leg.  
  
“Won’t be long now,” he said, giving the hobbit’s shoulders a squeeze. “First one’s probably the worst.”  
  
Bilbo wanted to tell Fíli that he was wrong because the next stitch hurt just as much. White spots were gathering at the edge of his vision and he wanted to either retch or faint, but he did not want his comrades thinking him weak - they already must already find him soft and useless since a little fall was causing this much trouble.

“Maybe you’ll get a tattoo when all’s said and done, eh Bilbo?” Nori’s voice came from somewhere above his head. Beside him, Ori was turning greener and greener until he finally looked off at something in the distance and his color returned to normal.  
  
“There’s a thought,” Fíli said. “Mister Dwalin ought to have been the one to...do the deed, eh?”  
  
“Dwalin can’t handle a needle for the life of him,” Balin’s voice was very far away sounding, but Bilbo clung to it, if only to concentrate on something other than pain. “Often as he’s gone under them.”  
  
“Not made for delicate work, me,” the warrior agreed. “But that’ll be a scar you can be proud of, Master Baggins.”  
  
“Long as you lie about where it came from,” Nori said contemplatively. “I know for a fact that our Dwalin there tells lassies one of his cuts came from a warg’s fang and I’ll tell you now, it’s all a pack of lies. He got it putting his fist through a window at the pub one night when he was so drunk he could barely stand - you lads heard this story before? No? Well, it’s was going on...had to be thirty or more years ago and I was coming back to town from a spree...”  
  
Out of the inner circle, Bifur nudged his cousin Bofur and asked quietly, “ **His eyes are still open?** ”  
  
Bofur tugged the flaps of his hat over his eyes and hissed back, “Don’t ask me, I can’t watch. Turns me stomach, that does.”  
  
“He’s awake,” Bombur said, glancing nervously over his shoulder. “Poor little lad. Wish he’d pass out and spare himself.”  
  
“ **He is strong** ,” Bifur observed and his cousins could not disagree with him.  
  
“...so the landlord says, ‘Now, now, none of that!' and Dwalin - in a fit of theatricality still talked about in the Blue Mountains - flings his arms about and roars, ‘HAVE IT YOUR OWN WAY!’ CRASH goes the window!”  
  
“No! Not our Mister Dwalin!” Fíli cried in shocked tones.  
  
“The same!” Glóin verified. “And lads, your mother, she laughed so hard and so long I thought she was going to turn blue.”  
  
“Our mother?” Fíli repeated in that same pseudo-appalled tone he used before.  
  
“Laughing at wanton destruction of property?” Kíli asked, but he still kept his eyes closed.  
  
“Never!” the brothers chorused as one.  
  
“Aye, she did,” Nori said, one eye on Thorin’s steady hand weaving a path in and out of the halfling’s flesh. “And you can tell her I said it too, when you see her again. Probably make her laugh to remember it.”  
  
“That’s done,” Thorin announced at last, tying off the thread and rising to wash his hands clean of blood. Óin was capable of doing the wrapping, even in poor light so he rushed forward to do the last of the work. “Still with us?” their leader inquired of Bilbo.  
  
The hobbit nodded, Fíli removed Nori’s leather strap from his mouth. “I...yes,” he said shakily. “Thank you.”  
  
Thorin nodded, “I’m only sorry it needed to be done like that. You’ve a stout heart. It’s a rare warrior who doesn’t flinch and flail under such treatment.” With a damp hand, he gave Bilbo’s arm a squeeze and rose to start ordering the Company to prepare their camp.  
  
Bilbo was given the first portion of Bombur’s stew for the night, and the other Dwarves insisted he have the closest spot to the fire - blood loss made a body cold, after all - and by that reasoning, they all gathered near him and told stories long into the night. Still regaining his strength, Bilbo could do little more than sip his stew and laugh softly occasionally.  
  
Even so, nothing lifted his spirits more than knowing the Company thought no less about him for his injury. On the contrary, if anything, they seemed fonder of him than ever before - Bofur even laid his hat on Bilbo’s own head, to keep him warm. As his brother observed, that was an honor not bestowed on many and Bilbo, despite the lingering pain in his leg, could not help but smile.


End file.
